On The Beach Movie Analysis

Imagine being one of the last people to view a major city of America. A place that was once full of life is now destroyed as a result of a nuclear war. There is a deep aspiration to find a source of life in this place, but that hope is lost after seeing the city so empty. Not only that, but what is suspected to be the only life in the northern hemisphere is merely a coke bottle. The only option left is to accept that the world is going to end at its predicted time. This is the situation that the men of the Australian Navy are faced with in On the Beach by Nevil Shute. This novel is about life in southern Australia after a nuclear war has wiped human life above the equator. The cobalt bombs dropped in this war have left a cloud of radiation …show more content…
This changes the path that the cruise takes in the movie. On the way to San Diego, the film shows the empty San Francisco. While the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed in the book, the film shows it in perfect condition. This darkens the mood of the crew, which directs the realistic expectation for what events may happen next. In the film, Yeoman Swain jumps ship at San Francisco so he can die in his hometown. He is actually from Edmonds, Washington. Once arriving at San Diego, Lieutenant Sunderstrom still makes his way to the location of the transmission only to find the coke bottle stuck in the blinds. However, one chilling scene is left out. This is the scene where he spots a group sitting on a verandah having a party and approaches them to discover that the group is dead. This scene helps direct the decline of hope for the rest of the book, and without it, there is less of a climax. This is besides the fact that the scene in San Diego was not represented as well compared to experiencing the thoughts, feelings and actions of the characters in the book during the …show more content…
Reading the book is a completely different experience than watching the film for On the Beach. Both of the cruises are very important portions of the story, and leaving one of them out takes away from the experience. The details leading up to the cruises are what bring meaning and conversation to the crew, even though the main missions are fulfilled. Altering the purpose and length of the cruise, as well as the relationship between characters, discourages visualizing the original story well. The cruise shown in them movie seems too short-lived and less dramatic than what actually happens. Although both versions have similar conclusions, witnessing what issues the men are faced with give the characters more meaning themselves. These factors also build towards the dramatic and depressing ending that the film could not execute as well. The film is incomparable to what emotion the book brings to the reader as they witness what could happen near the end of